Science and the Arts

Foreword by Anton Skorucak, Editor of PhysLink

'During my high school years, my physics
teacher recommended to me a wonderful book by Dr. L.I. Ponomarev: THE QUANTUM DICE.
In
this book Ponomarev examines some very interesting topics, like: Truth and Completeness of the
Scientific Picture of the World, Science and Humanity, Science and Art, etc.. I must say that I
was fascinated with what I was reading at that time. There I was, a high school student with
dreams of becoming a great physicist, reading about incredible, beautiful and complex
relationships between the sciences and arts and humanities.

Today, I have
this unexplainable need that comes from inside to study further these complex relationships. I am
beginning to notice this interplay of physical reality, life, human thought, artistic expression, etc. I
am just at the beginning of this road, and I hope that the writings I will present in this little corner
called - Cover Story - will light the way and be my, and your, road signs on this wonderful
journey'

'I am pleased to open this feature of PhysLink with the 'Science and the Arts' - by Tim
Love. This work is a 'must read', and I will leave you to discover it yourself.'

Tim LoveBorn:
1957Hi is a computer officer at Cambridge University, England. His poetry and
prose have appeared on the WWW and in many UK magazines (Stand, Oxford Poetry,
etc.)You can contact Tim at: tpl@eng.cam.ac.uk or visit his home page: http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~tpl

Science and the Arts by Tim Love

'The purpose of Art is to impart the sensation of things as they are
perceived, and not as they are known' - Shklovsky [30]

'Art works because perception goes beyond the evidence and it ignores much
counter-evidence' - Richard Gregory [13]

'Art evokes while science explains' - quoted by Richard Gregory [13]

'Science is a system of statements based on direct experience and controlled
by experimental verification.' - Carnap [5, p.42]

'Science, far from destroying the beauty and romance of the world as seen by
artists, musicians and writers, enhances it by revealing the underlying reasons
and purposes' - McConnell [21, p.2]

'Science is for those who learn; poetry for those who know' [23]

Newton received a mixed reception from poets. As the scientific revolution that
he spurred took hold, the Romantics protested against its mechanistic
abstractions. The protest was, in hindsight, valid though it wasn't until the
20th century that mainstream scientists realised the truth of the accusations
[9, p.108]. The protest was also ill-informed - the later Tennyson was much
better read in the sciences and subsequent generations of poets have always
included a few professional scientists. Apart from the debate sparked off by
C.P. Snow's 'Two Cultures' [31] and sporadic fascination with polymaths like da
Vinci, 20th century pure science and art continue in splendid isolation, though
'the rise of science has had something to do with displacing [poetry] as a
publicly important vehicle for those truths that people accept as being
centrally important.' [4]. The challenge of Positivism caused the Arts to
retreat from making great claims about `truth'. Poetry, for example, was cut
down to size by I.A. Richards and isolated/protected from other disciplines by
its claim to be a unique mode of discourse. Meanwhile literary theory (as
opposed to literary criticism) prides itself on being ever more
scientific. Technology, with its invitation to
control and change, has entered into all aspects of our everyday lives, making
artists more aware of contemporary science than scientists are of modern art.
This new openness from artists presents an opportunity to build greater
understanding between the `cultures'. Connections and analogies have been
advanced. Rather than give a general review of the (rather disappointing and
often acrimonious) literature I shall pick out a few of the false resemblances
and sweeping generalisations that recur, steering clear of sociological and
historical discussion in an attempt to find some common ground.

Science is Materialist

Classical science was materialist - the real world was undeniably out there.
Relativity was still a classical theory, though more phenomeno-logically based.
With Quantum Mechanics the observer entered into the equations, exciting
artists. Notions that the world was 'out there' waiting to be discovered were
questioned. Many quantum findings still feel counter-intuitive and their
interpretation controversial; it's the area where science and common sense part
company for good. Maths might be thought to have a simpler foundation, but in
fact it encompasses a range of ontological outlooks similar to those in other
science disciplines.

'The platonist metaphor assimilates mathematical enquiry to the
investigations of the astronomer: mathematical structures, like galaxies,
exist, independently of us, in a realm of reality which we do not inhabit but
which those of us who have the skill are capable of observing and reporting on.
The constructivist metaphor assimilates mathematical activity to that of the
artificer fashioning objects in accordance with the creative power of the
imagination.', Dummett, [9, p.225]

'In so far as the statements of geometry speak about reality, they are not
certain, and in so far as they are certain, they do not speak about reality',
Einstein [11, p.3]

Overall, the metaphysical basis of the sciences is closing in on that of the
arts - science becoming more constructivist, art less platonic - confirmed
early this century by a shared trend towards phenomenology led by Mach in
science, and Pound in poetry. It may well be that, as Jon Corelis in
private correspondence has suggested 'science
has made it impossible for poets to value their perceptions as having
an intrinsic metaphysical validity - a validity which is proven by the
desire, reverence, or exaltation they instill in us. Instead, poets
like scientists must now use their perceptions as sense-images
(analogous to observations) to which they must attempt to give value by
poetic imagination (analogous to scientific theory.)'

Science is Reductionist and Closed

Though science doesn't hesitate to break the whole into parts, art does
it too. Even in meditation, people sometimes concentrate on parts of the body
first. And many 20th century art developments arose from separating form from
content and recombining.

Of the sciences, maths is considered the one that's most simplified, derived
from axioms, but Gödel showed that there are true statements which can't
be proved. This finding has affected the grand designs of mathematicians. No
longer do they look for a list of axioms and rules that can be used to generate
all the theorems. It's made no difference to their other work because there's
no way of knowing beforehand whether a proof that's being sought exists or not.
Certainly no other fields of science have been affected.

Science seeks generalisations but ones which don't compromise. It seeks
all-encompassing rules rather than rules which, though covering more cases,
leave behind a slew of exceptions. 'Reality is complex whereas truth is simple'
says John Light [20]. But isn't truth an accurate statement of reality and thus
at least as complex as its subject matter? The generalisations of science are
simpler only because they're formulae, not lists of particulars.

Science is based on maths, and maths developed on Aristotlean logic where
statements are either true or false. This excluded middle needn't permeate up
through to science, and besides, new multivalue logics have been developed.
Nevertheless it's true that science dislikes ambiguity, (which Empson
considered a defining characteristic of poetry). At least when science is
reductionist it usually states its assumptions.

The methods of science are popularly thought to be appropriate for only
certain kinds of
problems - truths of the world, not of people. Though 'the part played by new
observation and experiment in the process of discovery in science is usually
over-estimated' [26, p.28] and most of the interesting results come from
'reconsideration of known phenomena in a new context' [26, p.28], science
depends on repeatable observation and prediction. In the main, science
recognises these limits, perhaps anticipating that its time will come when new
instruments and disciplines appear that can probe the previously hidden. For
instance in the 70's interest grew in the study of chaos and complex systems,
bridging, if only slightly, the gap between the domains. The use of neural nets
in computing may signal progress towards a more human, pattern-matching type of
computer.

Only in Science can works be wrong or outdated.

There's a feeling (expressed by Paul Mills [24], for example) that science has
truth values that are denied to works of art, and that science theories have a
limited lifespan. However, truth, even in science, is culture and context
dependent, controlled by the reigning (Kuhn) paradigms. Both art and science
are susceptible to the Zeitgeist (Rom Harré, [27]). Trends like
subjectivity, symmetry, interaction and atomicity can come into favour (Philip
Gell, [27], Halliwell, [15]), affecting notions of truth and beauty across the
board.

Even if a science theory has been shown to present a fundamentally wrong model
of reality, it can still be useful. Einstein's view of the universe superceded
Newton's, but Newton's laws got us to the moon and back. Einstein's gravitation
theory can't cope with quantum effects, but theoreticians still depend on it.
Ultimate truth is not the only factor determining a theory's lifetime. The
theoretical physicist Dirac said that when he had to choose between beauty and
truth, he always chose beauty [8], expecting later experiments to prove him
right.

Even in maths there is less certainty than is generally thought. In axiomatic
systems (Euclidian Geometry, for example) there are sometimes disputes about
which statements to use as axioms. In Number Theory the Axiom of Choice is
contentious (thought by some to be not self-evident) but without it many other
results couldn't be proved. And perhaps worse still, we know there'll always be
true statements which can't be proved.

In science (and especially the arts) not all the past is discarded. 'Both tend
to stability by precedents from the past' [13]. An expression like e is an
allusion to earlier work, just as much a shorthand as Eliot's burnished
throne is.

Art is more natural than science

The methods of science have been compared to those used by children
during normal development. Babies learn of the world using observation,
experimentation and deduction. Mature science is forging more links with other
fields of human involvement; witness Paul Davies' attempts to connect science
and religion [7].

Perhaps it's time to look in more depth at those who've excelled in both fields
to see if they get similar satisfactions out of their dual endevears. William
Empson and Valery were once maths students. Holub, Primo Levi, Goethe, da
Vinci, Danny Abse and William Carlos Williams all pursued dual careers. It
seems to me that the incidence of scientific and artistic talent in the one
person is no more than one would expect were the talents independent. There
seems little cross-influence except that poet-scientists use their science
experiences as subject matter and some of them (Edward Lowbury, for instance)
attribute their dislike of obscurity in art to their scientific upbringing.

Art's a richer language than science

Maths and music make claims to be universal languages of sorts. Science's base
metaphors are increasingly mathematical - building conceptual models from
billiard balls is a thing of the past. Some theorists (for example Wimsatt)
consider metaphor central to poetry. Colin Turbayne [33] thinks that that
science is metaphor-laden too, the metaphors dead. Waismann [quoted in 17]
argues that scientific concepts are only closed in specific contexts and that
they are not different in kind to the metaphors of poetry. Indeed, his 'open
texture' concept was developed initially to deal with the language of
science.

Natural language has room for various language games. Maths hasn't - games
aren't maths any more. Maths is one of the games that can be played in
language - and you've got to have a net. Its range of expression is limited
and consequently
maths requires a longer apprenticeship before creative work can be done.
Children can write poems but even undergraduate maths students can't express
themselves.

Appreciation of the arts also requires a long apprenticeship. The difference
between the cultures is that people looking at a Constable can say 'that's
nice' because it's expected of them or because they like the countryside.
Science rarely lets people off so lightly - scientists have to learn how
appreciate as well as express, they have to learn the language. Poetasters can
fake it.

I suspect that people with an impoverished appreciation of the arts (most of
us) can only extract from art `truths' that they already know from lived
experience. Playing Mozart to bushmen or reading Ashbery to almost anyone won't
impress the audience. Art isn't clearly more natural or even richer than
science.

Art and science have much in common

Prof Robert May [22] thinks that 'the essential aim of science is to
understand how the world works. This is also true of the arts ... the technical
trappings of science obscure its underlying kinship with the arts'. This is
too low a common denominator to be of much interest even if it were true.
I think the
differences lie deeper than that, and that the aims of art are less clear. The
arts also have their fair share of technical obscurity. Like I. A. Richards I'm
unimpressed by such attempts to show that 'the functions of science and poetry
are identical' [28, p.62]. However I think practitioners share some heuristics:
concepts may be held together in the mind to see if anything develops (for
artists the concepts may differ widely); concepts grow by association (artists
have more scope, fewer boundaries and can mix layers); experience builds
templates so that future similar situations can be more easily dealt with by
pattern-matching.

Intuition and imagination are highly valued in the sciences, though one can
plod along quite merrily without them (but then, one can be a very technically
accomplished and 'successful' concert pianist, I'm told, yet have little feel
for music).

I.A. Richards thought that 'the imaginative life is its own justification' [28,
p.66]. More recently Holden in [19] says 'Poetry is like Pure Maths, an end in
itself' but the Arts can contribute to the Zeitgeist, which in turn affects
scientists. On the whole it appears that science has been more useful to the
arts than vice versa - it has provided materials (oil paints), artforms
(cinema) and subject matter (science fiction). It has changed the world that
some think is art's duty to describe.

Attempts have been made to find analogies between arts and sciences. Buchanan
thought that 'The symbolic elements of poetry are words, and the corresponding
elements of mathematics are ratios' [2, p.18] and goes on to say that 'The
mathematician sees and deals with relations, the poet sees and deals with
qualities. Functions and adjectives respectively are the symbols through which
they see and with which they operate' [2, p.135]. This promising start isn't
built on. Elsewhere, the analogies are neither surprising nor interesting:

Methodology - A case has been made (in [21]) that the processes of art
and science correspond. I think the likeness rather tenuous. They split the
process into 3 contentious stages

observation - true, this is done in both fields. Sometimes in the arts the
thoroughness might be thought to match that in the sciences (Monet's multiple
views of Rouen Cathedral, maybe, or Picasso and Braque's cubist experiments or
a writer's research for a novel).

generalisation - this is seldom done in the arts. Perhaps an artist might
extract the general features of sadness from the hundreds of faces seen, but
such a result isn't used like generalisations in science. The aim of artists
more to explore differences than find commonality.

testing - This stretches the metaphor too far. Comparing how scientific
results are judged with the way that works of art are received by the public
and critics begs too many questions. Apart from anything else, creators in the
scientific world can propose ways that their work might be invalidated. In the
arts there's nothing comparable.

The Scientific
Method is only science's sense organs, extending mankind's natural ones. It's
not the be-all and end-all of science.

Quantum Theory - In Quantum Theory, probabilities can be calculated but
only when an observation is made can any certainty be established. Observation
is said to 'collapse the probability function.' This has been used for an
analogy to the way that a text is interpreted (dis-ambiguated) by the act of
reading [24]. But texts can be re-read!

Relativity - Connections are made between Einstein's Special Relativity
and analytic cubism. Awareness of the equal importance of world viewpoints, the
impossibility of absolute motion and time perhaps permeated via the Zeitgeist
to artists; the link came from no deep mutual understanding.

Gödel - Gödel's findings (see above) have helped soften
artists' views on science and has removed an aim of classical science. They
have only made maths more obviously like the other sciences. The gap between
science and the arts hasn't thereby been reduced.

Geometry - Mondrian is heavily geometric and minimalist. This doesn't
make him more appealing to mathematicians. Equally, the 4-colour problem in
maths isn't appealing to artists.

References

Bush's and Nicolson's books and the introduction to 'Poems of
Science' give useful historical accounts. None of the other references are
highly recommended. Green's book is interesting in that he's an arts person who
took Snow to heart. Polanyi's book is worth a read too.

Science Quote

'You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.'